Chapter 12
Spencer
T here’s no denying it.
I noticed his bulge.
Also, while I’m being honest, I noticed the way his tan, defined six-pack was glittering in the morning sunlight like they were a Christmas present for me. I swear I only ogled him for a moment. Then I whipped around to restore his privacy.
Only problem was the damn door.
I was hopeful when I arrived at the office this morning the glacier-like work environment my boss worked so hard to create was finally melting.
I’m a fantastic assistant. I could really help make his life easier if he let me.
I don’t see picking up lunch and dry cleaning beneath me.
Acts of service is my love language. I learned when Mom’s strength started to wane, the little things can make a world of difference.
This was exactly the speech I intended to give Nathan when I burst through his office.
Except there he was in his black briefs that didn’t leave much to the imagination.
By the time I get back to my desk from my humiliating encounter with Nathan, a takeout coffee has appeared on my desk.
The cup is dwarfed by the kraft-brown sleeve; it’s even smaller than a tall.
Geez. The man is a billionaire, he could’ve splurged for a grande at least. Removing the ice pack I scavenged out of the break room freezer from my face, I take a small sip of the coffee.
I wince at the brew that is most certainly lighter fluid.
Frantically, I check the sticky label on the cup and am surprised when it reads, “cortado,” not poison.
Clearly Nathan and I don’t enjoy the same type of coffee.
I guess he likes this nonsense, whereas I prefer my caffeine not taste like torture.
I don’t actually drink coffee much anymore because I can’t enjoy it the way I like—drenched in caramel sauce and a generous helping of cold foam cream.
Back when I was on my weight-loss pills, I could survive a whole day off of one grande white chocolate mocha with a heavy dollop of whipped cream.
Selfishly, I miss them. The pills took the anxiety out of eating.
It was like outsourcing the constant stress and fear I had when it came to food.
Jesse helped me buy them from Mexico. He knew a guy who knew a guy.
I should’ve known excessively taking pills that were a far cry from FDA-approved medication would’ve landed me in the hospital.
It scared the shit out of Charlie. My little sister is strong, but I think the scar of losing me, on top of everything else she’s been through, would never heal.
After a dramatic collapse, an overnight hospital stay, and the doctor threatening me with terms like gallbladder disease, pancreatitis, high blood pressure, and even cardiac arrest, I decided I couldn’t continue to take them.
Now, I have to sit here and watch my body transform right back into what I really am.
My mom told me I was beautiful and perfect every day of my life.
She bestowed such confidence in me, I never saw the glass-shattering blow that was coming for me during my first week at UNLV.
I might still see myself the way my mom did had nearly an entire college campus not seen me naked and publicly shamed me.
Some people have that nightmare where they are caught on stage in their birthday suit, with all the people they’re trying to impress shining a flashlight on all the parts of their body that are too big, too jiggly, too stretched and marked. It wasn’t my nightmare…
It was my reality.
It’s been five years since I quit school and returned home from Las Vegas.
I managed to get my degree from a local Miami college.
I busted my ass to finish school on time.
I worked all day and studied. I started taking diet pills and lost all the wiggly parts I was teased for.
I quietly fixed all my insecurities one by one, but it didn’t make the trauma go away.
It’s partly why I’m so paranoid about Charlie being on the internet and exposing herself to criticism.
I don’t want her teased and ridiculed like I was.
It doesn’t matter that she’s a child, or beautiful, petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed, and sings like she’s God’s gift to humankind.
The trolls have no mercy; they’ll conjure up something.
How can I console her the first time someone calls her a mean name, pokes at her appearance, or criticizes her talents when they are talentless themselves?
How can I fix for her, what I never learned to fix for myself?
Coming back here, I’m also trying to face what I ran from.
There were other jobs—admittedly, none paying as well as Brickstone Ventures, especially when you consider the perks.
But I could’ve made it work elsewhere in Dallas or Denver, perhaps.
Something called me back to Las Vegas… I’m still not sure exactly what.
After taking another small sip of the cortado—and regretting it—I sit down at my desk and open my laptop, mostly out of habit.
Outside of the company-wide newsletters that go out on Mondays, my inbox is always empty.
Except now there’s a little notification.
A bright red “1” on the email icon indicating I have a new message.
From: Nathan Hatcher
To: Spencer Riley-Brenner
Subject: Important Task
Spencer,
I’ll have to cancel our meeting this afternoon. I’m headed to the East Coast to handle an urgent matter. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. I’m emailing over instructions for the task I need you to complete. Please keep this confidential.
I’m sure you’re familiar with Shaylin, the Grammy-winning pop sensation. She’s considering a residency at our new hotel. I’m meeting her for dinner to discuss a potential deal.
I need a reservation at a chef’s table.
I pause reading and roll my eyes. This is way too easy.
Nathan’s treating me with kid gloves. Fancy reservations are my calling card.
I could get Hank a chef’s table at Swerve, one of Miami’s most exclusive steakhouses, easily.
They don’t even pick up the phone there.
You have to leave a voicemail at least three months prior, pray they call you back, and when they don’t (which they won’t), you have to grovel via email a few times to be put on a waiting list.
I, however, once helped a random woman on the side of the road change her flat tire in a bind. Turns out she was the lead hostess at Swerve. She’s now in my contacts list and Hank would always get the best tables. I never told him my little secret. My old boss just thinks I was that good.
But my cocky smile disappears as I continue to read the email.
To clarify, a celebrity chef’s table, for example, Giada De Laurentiis, Gordon Ramsay, or Bobby Flay. Wolfgang Puck is my strong preference if he’s free.
Thanks, Spencer. It’s a very important meeting. We want to impress Shaylin. Don’t let me down.
Before I forget, I need the reservation for tomorrow at eight.
Cheers,
Nathan Hatcher
Senior Partner, Brickstone Ventures
Consider me humbled.
A celebrity chef by tomorrow night? Did Nathan smoke an entire bowl before he wrote this email?
How the hell am I even supposed to get in touch with Wolfgang Puck?
Not to mention, do the chefs he listed even cook for guests?
I always figured they just own the restaurants and film their cooking shows.
This is absolute insanity. No way I can pull this off.
Oh.
It dawns on me. That’s the point.
That’s why he was being so pleasant . He was purposely luring me into a false sense of security.
My boss wants me to trip over my own two feet, failing at his request. Perhaps he's hoping to write me up for failing to come through with an assignment. Although, if I brought this to HR, no way his case would stand. Any reasonable person would see this is absurd. No…I know exactly what he’s doing. The jackass.
He wants to piss me off enough to quit.
A smarter girl would cut her losses and just find another job. My salary advance is generous, but it’s not a lottery win. Surely there’s another job in this city that would be a better fit than working for a sexy incarnation of Hades himself. But you know what?
I want to put this fucker in his place.
I’m so pissed off. Because he’s pretending he doesn’t remember me.
Because he’s weaponizing avoidant behavior.
But mostly I’m angry because… I don’t know.
I still want the Nate I met at House of Blues—the one who had my heart skipping beats like it never had before.
I’m convinced the broody jerk occupying the office in front of me stole Nate and is hiding him in a basement somewhere.
Not even Cowboy Caleb from earlier today was sending shivers up my spine. Even if he is scrumptious…he wasn’t Nate.
I pull the mini donuts from my purse and tuck them in my top drawer. I’ll let the little treats go stale, but Caleb’s name and number is the reminder I need that not all hot, single men are evil.
All right. Now, back to the task at hand: outsmarting the bosshole.
I grab my phone and scroll through my contacts.
Las Vegas has all the celebrity chef franchise restaurants, but calling the reservation desks will get me nowhere in a little over twenty-four hours.
I have to know somebody who knows somebody.
I’m not rich or important, but I’ve spent the last few years of my life proving myself to very rich and important people who practically beg me to call in favors.
Nathan made a grave mistake in underestimating me.
First call? The big kahuna—Dex Hessler. My prior boss’s boss. My other prior boss’s husband. And a bona fide billionaire good guy. As the phone rings, I press against the bridge of my nose which is still tender and aching. But that’s to be expected.
When you go to war, you have to anticipate at least a little pain.